Hurricane Bush

[Argus]

Toro:

Do you have that much utter contempt for Republican voters? I guess we're all just a bunch of cotton-picking, inbred, banjo-playing, square-dancing, cousin-marrying, teeth-missing, grade-four educated yokels living here in the South.

Wear dey all too pore and stoopid to unnerstan’ an’ make dey own decishuns widdout de gaahdance of enlaahten’d libruls, dontcha no?”

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would never say that about all Republican voters. You, on the other hand....

There are some for whom the democratic process is simply too complex.

There are some for whom a flush toilet is too complex.

[Shady]

WHY DIDN'T YOU DEPLOY THE BUSES DURING THE MANDATORY EVACUATION, MAYOR?...

Link

Louisiana disaster plan, pg 13, para 5 , dated 01/00

'The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating'...

[Toro]

Do you have that much utter contempt for Republican voters?

Well... kind of.

You are a Republican's dream. There's nothing people who live in Fly-Over Country like better than have some intellectual-type look down at them, telling them they don't know what's best for them.

Racist? I won't say all Republican voters are racist. I will say all racists vote Republican.

Then you say

I have been a fairly close observer of American politics for some time

Sorry. Come live here for a decade then talk to me. You may observe American politics, but by that bolded statement, you truly don't truly understand it. But don't take the wrong way. Most Canadians don't really understand American politics, though they may think they do. I didn't realize that until I moved here, and I am still learning the political reflexes of Americans.

And how is that relevent? If Clinton ignored it too does that absolve Bush of guilt?

No it does not. And I stated that. But it doesn't absolve Clinton or any other politician who had the opportunity to raise the issue either.

Who has said this is only Bush's responsibility?

Well you, apparently. Or maybe I can give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're only blaming Republicans during Bush's term.

I can see Bush sitting around with his southern friends and saying, in effect, "There ain't nothin' in New Orleans but niggers and nigger lovers", to a round of appreciative chuckles.

So you tell me why those levees were not properly maintained, Toro. They sure as hell had the money to do it. They sure as hell knew they were inadequate. Was it racism and republican arrogance and contempt for a poor democratic district, or criminal negligence? It had to be one or the other. There is no third option.

So, according to you, Argus, there are two, and only two - count 'em, one, two - reasons why this could have happened. Since racists only vote Republican, and since the only other option is "Republican arrogance", it can only be Republicans at fault, right?

Well, even according to you, that's not correct

You can blame the state, to some extent, and you can certainly blame the Congress (republican controlled for how many years now?).

...and the previous administration.

So now we're getting somewhere. Now you've just stated that its more than just Republican racism and arrogance.

But you also said this insightful quote

Upgrading those dykes and levees is a multi-billion dollar, long-term task

BINGO! Thank you very much Argus. Correct-amundo! My point exactly. Long-term, as in years. Many years. Many years spanning many Congresses and different Presidents.

That is my answer. You've said it yourself.

[Argus]

Do you have that much utter contempt for Republican voters?

Well... kind of.

You are a Republican's dream. There's nothing people who live in Fly-Over Country like better than have some intellectual-type look down at them, telling them they don't know what's best for them.

Well... someone has to. Give me a reason to vote Republican that makes sense if you're not rich. Republicans have shown nothing but contempt for the poor, and a kind of greasy, pat-you-on-the-back-while-robbing-you-blind smile to the middle class. But their actions have spoken loudly enough that the only game in town is the one that belongs to the guys with the big bucks. They are morally self-righteous while owning no real sense of morality. They cater to the religious right while ignoring the fundamentals of Christianity in their personal lives. Gun loving, God loving, money loving weasels, the lot of them - without a principal in sight.

Who has said this is only Bush's responsibility?

Well you, apparently. Or maybe I can give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're only blaming Republicans during Bush's term.

I'm blaming the guy in the big chair behind the desk which used to have a sign which said "the buck stops here". The fact I personally detest him as a weaselly, lying, hypocritcal, no-account rich boy is beside the point.

So you tell me why those levees were not properly maintained, Toro. They sure as hell had the money to do it. They sure as hell knew they were inadequate. Was it racism and republican arrogance and contempt for a poor democratic district, or criminal negligence? It had to be one or the other. There is no third option.

So, according to you, Argus, there are two, and only two - count 'em, one, two - reasons why this could have happened. Since racists only vote Republican, and since the only other option is "Republican arrogance", it can only be Republicans at fault, right?

You want me to get into the good points, bad points and political faults of a city mayor I've never heard of, that no one here has ever heard of? I don't care if the mayor was a southern version of Marion Barry Bush was still in the big chair. It was the responsibilty of the federal government to make sure those levees were properly constructed. If Clinton was in charge and had, instead of taking action, slashed funding and then torn apart FEMA and appointed his idiot, no-account, no experience buddy to run it I'd be just as hard on him.

Upgrading those dykes and levees is a multi-billion dollar, long-term task

BINGO! Thank you very much Argus. Correct-amundo! My point exactly. Long-term, as in years. Many years. Many years spanning many Congresses and different Presidents.

Well, three in any case, two of them named Bush. I don't know what actions Clinton took or proposed. I do know what Bush did and did not do. If you have information about Clinton refusing funds in the same manner then by all means post it.

But Bush is the president, now and for the past five years. Bush is the guy who failed the task of leadership here, today, in 2005. And yes, you can throw in the congress, too, both democrat and republican - though of course, the republicans have been in charge for some years.

In any event, I'm still waiting for a reason why the White House slashed funding for flood control for New Orleans that is unrelated to it being filled with poor black democrats. Anything will do.

[Montgomery Burns]

Argus:

Racist? I won't say all Republican voters are racist. I will say all racists vote Republican.

Are you out of your bleepin' mind? Everyone, and I mean everyone with an IQ higher than a piece of toilet paper, knows that the Democrat Party is the Party of Racism.

Do you even read your fricking history?

Do you even know what party calls Senator Byrd (D-KKK) "the conscience of the Senate?

Are you out of your bloody mind?

Please please stop. You are embarrassing yourself with your ni**er talk and you are making a fool out of yourself.

The Republicans have ALWAYS been the champions of freedom for all races; the Democrats have ALWAYS been the Party of Racism.

The Democrat's utter contempt for minorities is well-known and documented throughout history.

Period!

Get a bloody clue.

[Guest eureka]

Only too accurate, Kimmy. The primary responsibility is federal in the US. The argument about that as been just too foolish for me to bether with it. The fact is that the funds for the levee improvements and for FEMAwere in the federal budget and were cut out of it so that FEMA was enfeebled and the work on the levees had to be abandoned. What more evidence is required.

There is a little too much made, in attempting to excuse Bush of the lack of acrion by earlier administrations. The reality of that, is that it has been in the tenure of the Bush administration that the frequence and intensity of hurricanes has increased. Only in Bush's terms has it been truly recognized in the US that this would happen and that it will get even worse.

In spite of that, Bush cut funding - while the levees and the capacity for respons deteriorated further. The denial of the dangers that are accompanying climate change is present only in this administration and the denial is a self serving suppression of the truth for public consumption of the untruths.

Bush is without any doubt culpable, along with the whole cabal around him. They knew as well as anyone in the US yet they deliberately allowed the protections to deteriorate. The blood of the victims is on their hands as surely as is the blood of tens of thousands in Iraq.

It might not have taken too much work on the levees to repair and raise them sufficiently to dull the effects of this hurricane though perhaps not of what yet may come. It might not have taken much more money for FEMA to be in a position to have saved many more.

The neglect in this case does amount to criminal negligence as I am sure Toro knows. Bush should not be allowed to escape this one. What a petty affair Watergate seems compared to Iraq, Kyoto, and now New Orleans and the other devasted cities.

[Montgomery Burns]

WHY DIDN'T YOU DEPLOY THE BUSES DURING THE MANDATORY EVACUATION, MAYOR?...

Link

Louisiana disaster plan, pg 13, para 5 , dated 01/00

'The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating'...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Dated 01/00?!

Damn that George Bush!

[mirror]

Bush tries to quell political crisis

This is beginning to look so bad for Bush that when the investigations are over Bush may wish that he had never been president. He has brought shame on America.

New Orleans Left to the Dead and Dying

Hurricane Katrina has demolished this administration's mask of confidence

[Montgomery Burns]

Bush is completely to blame for this disaster. As the storm made its way towards the Mississippi Delta, Bush refused to use his Merlin's Magical Wand to ward away this menace. As the levee broke, he refused to use the heat beams from his eyes to weld it back together. And to this day, he refuses to to fly around the world counterclockwise at light speed to reverse the flow of time so that adequate preparations could have been made. But he seems perfectly willing to erect a forcefield to prevent National Guard troops from other states entering the affected areas. Dr. Evil and Ernesto Blofeld could learn a thing or two from Emperor Bush.

[Toro]

You crack me up Monty

ABC/Washington Post poll this morning

http://abcnews.go.com/US/HurricaneKatrina/...=1094262&page=1

Poll: Bush Not Taking Brunt of Katrina Criticism

Hurricane Preparedness Is Faulted; Fewer Blame Bush for Problems

Sept. 4, 2005 — Americans are broadly critical of government preparedness in the Hurricane Katrina disaster — but far fewer take George W. Bush personally to task for the problems, and public anger about the response is less widespread than some critics would suggest.

Sampling, data collection and tabulation for this poll were done by TNS.

In an event that clearly has gripped the nation — 91 percent of Americans are paying close attention — hopefulness far outweighs discontent about the slow-starting rescue. And as in so many politically charged issues in this country, partisanship holds great sway in views of the president's performance.

The most critical views cross jurisdictions: Two-thirds in this ABC News/Washington Post poll say the federal government should have been better prepared to deal with a storm this size, and three-quarters say state and local governments in the affected areas likewise were insufficiently prepared.

Views of Hurricane Response

  Yes  No

Federal government adequately prepared?    31%    67%

State/local government adequately prepared?    24    75

Blame Bush?    44    55

Other evaluations are divided. Forty-six percent of Americans approve of Bush's handling of the crisis, while 47 percent disapprove. That compares poorly with Bush's 91 percent approval rating for his performance in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but it's far from the broad discontent expressed by critics of the initial days of the hurricane response. (It also almost exactly matches Bush's overall job approval rating, 45 percent, in an ABC/Post poll a week ago.)

Similarly, 48 percent give a positive rating to the federal government's response overall, compared with 51 percent who rate it negatively — another split view, not a broadly critical one.

When it gets to specifics, however, most ratings are worse: Majorities ranging from 56 to 79 percent express criticism of federal efforts at delivering food and water, evacuating displaced people, controlling looting and (especially) dealing with the price of gasoline. In just one specific area — conducting search and rescue operations — do most, 58 percent, give the government positive marks.

Rating the Government's Handling of…

  Positive  Negative

Situation overall    48%    51%

Gas prices    20    79

Looting/td>    26    71

Evacuations    38    59

Food, water needs    43    56

Search, rescue    58    39

Partisanship, as noted, plays a huge role: Nearly three-quarters of Republicans approve of the president's performance, and two-thirds rate the government's overall response positively. About seven in 10 Democrats take the opposite view on both scores.

Bush's Response to Katrina

  Approve  Disapprove

All    46%    47%

Democrats    17    71

Independents    44    48

Republicans    74    22

[Ironside]

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the New Orleans newspaper The Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at the web site of The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

[Argus]

Argus:

Racist? I won't say all Republican voters are racist. I will say all racists vote Republican.

Are you out of your bleepin' mind? Everyone, and I mean everyone with an IQ higher than a piece of toilet paper, knows that the Democrat Party is the Party of Racism.

Suuuuure it is. That's why all Blacks vote for them. That's why there are so many Black Democratic senators and congressmen. I think there are what, six or seven Black Republicans in the whole country? All of them rich men.

Those dumb Black people. They just can't see that the Republican Party loves them! Loves them to death, in fact.

You get more ludicrously funny with every post. And the odd thing is you actually seem to believe the knee-slappers you're writing.

[Argus]

Bush is completely to blame for this disaster. As the storm made its way towards the Mississippi Delta, Bush refused to use his Merlin's Magical Wand to ward away this menace. As the levee broke, he refused to use the heat beams from his eyes to weld it back together.

The funny thing is this post makes more sense and is more realistic than anything else you've posted to date.

[mirror]

I very much doubt Bush will escape the fallout here.

Falluja Floods the Superdome

In that sense, the inequality of the suffering has not only exposed the sham of the relentless photo-ops with black schoolchildren whom the president trots out at campaign time to sell his "compassionate conservatism"; it has also positioned Katrina before a rapt late-summer audience as a replay of the sinking of the Titanic. New Orleans's first-class passengers made it safely into lifeboats; for those in steerage, it was a horrifying spectacle of every man, woman and child for himself.

THE captain in this case, Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, was so oblivious to those on the lower decks that on Thursday he applauded the federal response to the still rampaging nightmare as "really exceptional." He told NPR that he had "not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water" - even though every television viewer in the country had been hearing of those 25,000 stranded refugees for at least a day. This Titanic syndrome, too, precisely echoes the post-9/11 wartime history of an administration that has rewarded the haves at home with economic goodies while leaving the have-nots to fight in Iraq without proper support in manpower or armor. Surely it's only a matter of time before Mr. Chertoff and the equally at sea FEMA director, Michael Brown (who also was among the last to hear about the convention center), are each awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in line with past architects of lethal administration calamity like George Tenet and Paul Bremer.

On Thursday morning, the president told Diane Sawyer that he hoped "people don't play politics during this period of time." Presumably that means that the photos of him wistfully surveying the Katrina damage from Air Force One won't be sold to campaign donors as the equivalent 9/11 photos were. Maybe he'll even call off the right-wing attack machine so it won't Swift-boat the Katrina survivors who emerge to ask tough questions as it has Cindy Sheehan and those New Jersey widows who had the gall to demand a formal 9/11 inquiry.

But a president who flew from Crawford to Washington in a heartbeat to intervene in the medical case of a single patient, Terri Schiavo, has no business lecturing anyone about playing politics with tragedy. Eventually we're going to have to examine the administration's behavior before, during and after this storm as closely as its history before, during and after 9/11. We're going to have to ask if troops and matériel of all kinds could have arrived faster without the drain of national resources into a quagmire. We're going to have to ask why it took almost two days of people being without food, shelter and water for Mr. Bush to get back to Washington.

Most of all, we're going to have to face the reality that with this disaster, the administration has again increased our vulnerability to the terrorists we were supposed to be fighting after 9/11. As Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar, pointed out to The Washington Post last week in talking about the fallout from the war in Iraq, there have been twice as many terrorist attacks outside Iraq in the three years after 9/11 than in the three years before. Now, thanks to Mr. Bush's variously incompetent, diffident and hubristic mismanagement of the attack by Katrina, he has sent the entire world a simple and unambiguous message: whatever the explanation, the United States is unable to fight its current war and protect homeland security at the same time.

The answers to what went wrong in Washington and on the Gulf Coast will come later, and, if the history of 9/11 is any guide, all too slowly, after the administration and its apologists erect every possible barrier to keep us from learning the truth. But as Americans dig out from Katrina and slouch toward another anniversary of Al Qaeda's strike, we have to acknowledge the full extent and urgency of our crisis. The world is more perilous than ever, and for now, to paraphrase Mr. Rumsfeld, we have no choice but to fight the war with the president we have.

[Shady]

I very much doubt Bush will escape the fallout here

Is this another prediction? How's Rove doing? Is he done yet? Like you declared.

[Montgomery Burns]

I very much doubt Bush will escape the fallout here

Is this another prediction? How's Rove doing? Is he done yet? Like you declared.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's just another leftwing wet dream.

[Montgomery Burns]

Argus:

Racist? I won't say all Republican voters are racist. I will say all racists vote Republican.

Are you out of your bleepin' mind? Everyone, and I mean everyone with an IQ higher than a piece of toilet paper, knows that the Democrat Party is the Party of Racism.

Suuuuure it is. That's why all Blacks vote for them. That's why there are so many Black Democratic senators and congressmen. I think there are what, six or seven Black Republicans in the whole country? All of them rich men.

Those dumb Black people. They just can't see that the Republican Party loves them! Loves them to death, in fact.

You get more ludicrously funny with every post. And the odd thing is you actually seem to believe the knee-slappers you're writing.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think you are trolling or a blind ideologue. No one could possibly be so ignorant, or in such denail, of the history of racism from the Democrat Party.

Consider the Democrat Party's heroes and leaders:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Democrat icon and orchestrator of Japanese Internment.

Ex-House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, former affiliate of a St. Louis area white supremacist group, Metro South Citizens Council.

Senator Robert Byrd, former Ku Klux Klansman (and Kleagle) and known for suing the term 'white nigger' twice on Fox News Sunday on March 5, 2001. Often described by Democrats as "the conscience of the Senate."

Rev. Jesse Jackson, Democrat keynote speaker and race hustler known for making anti-Semitic slurs and referring to NYC as Hymietown.

Rev. Al Sharpten, Democrat activist and perennial candidate and race hustler known inciting anti-Semitic violence in NYC. Sharpton was a central figure who fanned the 1991 Crown Heights race riot, where a mob shouting anti-semetic slurs murdered an innocent Jewish man. Sharpton also incited a 1995 protest of a Jewish owned store in Harlem where protesters used several anti-semetic slurs. During the protests, a Sharpton lieutenant called the store's owner a "bloodsucker" and declared an intent to "loot the Jews." A member of the protest mob later set fire to the store, resulting in the death of seven.

Senator Ernest Hollings, leading Democrat Senator known for use of racial slurs against several minority groups. While in office as governor, Hollings personally led the opposition to lunch counter integration in his state. Hollings warned that South Carolina would not permit 'explosive' manifestations in connection with Negro demands for lunch-counter services. Hollings gave a speech in which he challenged President Eisenhower's contention that minorities had the right to engage in certain types of demonstrations against segregation. In the speech Hollings described the Republican president as "confused" and asserted that Eisenhower had done "great damage to peace and good order" by supporting the rights of minorities to protest segregation at the lunch counters.

Lee P. Brown, former Clinton cabinet official and Democrat mayor of Houston who won reelection using racial intimidation against Hispanic voters.

Andrew Cuomo, former Clinton cabinet official and Democrat candidate for NY Governor who made racist statements about a black opponent. He was tape recorded using racially inflamatory rhetoric to build opposition to a potential Democrat primary opponent while speaking to a Democrat group. Cuomo stated that voting for his rival for the NY Democrat gubernatorial nomination Carl McCall, who is black, would create a "racial contract" between Black and Hispanic Democrats "and that can't happen."

Dan Rather, Democrat CBS news anchor and editorialist known for using an anti-black racial epithet (Buckwheats) on a national radio broadcast.

Donna Brazile, former Gore campaign manager known for making anti-white racial attacks. Brazile has also worked for Jackson, Gephardt, and Michael Dukakis.

Hugo Black, former Democrat Senator from Alabama and liberal US Supreme Court Justice appointed by FDR, Hugo Black had a lengthy history of hate group activism. Black was a member of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920's and gained his legal fame defending Klansmen under prosecution for racial murders.

Mary Frances Berry, Democrat chair of the US Commission on Civil Rights. She is an open racist who is affiliated with the far-left Pacifica radio network, a group with ties to black nationalist causes. Berry once stated "Civil rights laws were not passed to protect the rights of white men and do not apply to them," indicating that she believes the USCCR should only look out for civil rights violations against persons of certain select skin colors.

Billy McKinney, former Democrat State Representative of Georgia, who is also the father of former Democrat congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of the same state. During his daughter's failed 2002 reelection bid, McKinney appeared on television where he blamed his daughter's difficulties on a Jewish conspiracy. McKinney unleashed a string of anti-semitic sentiments, stating "This is all about the Jews" and spelling out "J-E-W-S."

The Democrat Party and the KKK:

Aside from the multiple Klan members who have served in elected capacity within the high ranks of the Democrat Party, the political party itself has a lengthy history of involvement with the KKK. The Democrat National Convention of 1924 was host to one of the largest Klan gatherings in American history. Dubbed the "Klanbake convention", the 1924 DNC in New York was dominated by a platform dispute surrounding the KKK. A minority of the delegates to the convention attempted to condemn the hate group in the party's platform, but found their proposal shot down by Klan supporters within the party. As delegates inside the convention voted in the Klan's favor, the Klan itself mobilized a celebratory rally outside. On July 4, 1924 one of the largest Klan gatherings ever occurred outside the convention on a field in nearby New Jersey. The event was marked by speakers spewing racial hatred, celebrations of their platform victory in the Democrat Convention, and ended in a cross burning.

Democrat opposition to the Civil Rights Movement:

A calculation of 26 major civil rights votes from 1933 through the 1960's civil rights era shows that Republicans favored civil rights in approximately 96% of the votes, whereas the Democrats opposed them in 80% of the votes. These facts are intentionally ignored by the liberal-controlled media for obvious reasons.

The complete list of the 21 Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes Senators:

Hill and Sparkman of Alabama, Fulbright and McClellan of Arkansas, Holland and Smathers of Florida, Russell and Talmadge of Georgia, Ellender and Long of Louisiana, Eastland and Stennis of Mississippi, Ervin and Jordan of North Carolina, Johnston and Thurmond of South Carolina, Gore Sr. and Walters of Tennessee, H. Byrd and Robertson of Virginia, and "conscience of the Senate" R. Byrd of West Virginia.

Democrat opposition to the Civil Rights Act was substantial enough to literally split the party in two. A whopping 40% of the House Democrats VOTED AGAINST the Civil Rights Act, while 80% of Republicans SUPPORTED it. Republican support in the Senate was even higher. Similar trends occurred with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was supported by 82% of House Republicans and 94% of Senate Republicans.

It took the hard work of Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen and Republican Whip Thomas Kuchel to pass the Civil Rights Act. Dirksen also broke the Democrat filibuster of the 1957 Civil Rights Act that was signed by Republican President Eisenhower.

Outside of Congress, the 3 most notorious opponents of school integration were all Democrats:

Orval Faubus, Democrat Governor of Arkansas and one of Bill Clinton's political heroes.

George Wallace, Democrat Governor of Alabama, and

Lester Maddox, Democrat Governor of Georgia.

The most famous of the school desegregation standoffs involved Governor Faubus. Democrat Faubus used police and state forces to block the integration of a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. The standoff was settled and the school was integrated only after the intervention of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower.

And who was it that signed the Emacipation Act, ending slavery? Republican President Abe Lincoln.

Yet you foolishly claim that all Republicans are racist and Democrats have no, or little, history of racism? And you claim that you, as a Canadian, know more about America than some of the American posters on this forum.

You're a troll. You have to be. No one could be so shockingly ignorant of history.

[Argus]

You're a troll.  You have to be.  No one could be so shockingly ignorant of history.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Y'know what? History doesn't matter. It's today that matters. The Republican Party of today is the party of rich white country club people, religous wackos, gun nuts and fat-cat corporate lobbyists. And it detests anyone not White and Christian.

[Montgomery Burns]

You're a troll.  You have to be.  No one could be so shockingly ignorant of history.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Y'know what? History doesn't matter. It's today that matters. The Republican Party of today is the party of rich white country club people, religous wackos, gun nuts and fat-cat corporate lobbyists. And it detests anyone not White and Christian.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I notice that while the incompetent, power-mad, oil-stealing, neocon Bush is up past his bedtime organizing disaster relief (for his next carrier photo-op probably,) the poor, exploited Kerry/Clinton supporters are burning down the city, looting and raping young girls. You would have thought they would look to Bubba and Teddy and John-Boy for examples of correct behaviour towards the helpless and needy. Oh, they did. Liberals.

As a number of folks have pointed out on this thread, the problem is the failure of the Democrat Governor and the Democrat mayor to evacuate the Democrat voters of deep-blue New Orleans. Now they are behaving like typical Democrats; stealing from others, complaining that the federal govt isn't giving enough, and sowing division based upon race and class. I think it is best summed up by the "starving" woman who, upon receiving the same MRE meal supplied to US troops in the field, spit out the first bite and tossed the rest aside because it wasn't hot. Nothing is ever enough for you folks on the Left, whose philosophy is "Give me more and better -- I'm entitled."

In the meantime, the folks over in bible-thumping, gun-loving, oh-so-red Texas are taking over 100,000 evacuees from the storm (those brought in via official efforts plus those who came on their own) - most of them in bible-thumping, gun-loving, oh-so-red Harris County and the surrounding counties (the most Republican metropolitan area in the USA). And since you wish to trash the religious beliefs of millions of Christians, please note that the biggest efforts to help the victims of this disaster are coming from the bible-thumping, oh-so-red churches of the Houston metropolitan area.

[mirror]

For Bush, Next Moves Are Key to Rest of Term

The first week of September 2005 likely will be remembered as one of the most troubled weeks of George W. Bush's presidency, a time in which natural disaster combined with bureaucratic bungling in ways that threatened to inundate an administration already on the defensive.

Even before Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast last Monday, Bush was buffeted by public dissatisfaction over the war in Iraq and consumer outrage over rising gasoline prices. But the federal government's widely criticized response to the hurricane's devastation in New Orleans and elsewhere turned a challenging environment into one that is potentially overwhelming.

Already today, close to 50% (44% actually) blame Bush for the Katrina catastrophe, and that is before any investigations takes place which will reveal his lack of urgency at the beginning, which has seriously compounded the Katrina problems.

The Democrats must be smelling blood for the first time in a long, long, time. They must have someone in their leadership that could allow them to exploit this situation to the max, and put these US Admistration suckers out of their misery, once and for all. I may be wrong but I just don't think Hillary is going to be the one to cut it though, even though she is from the South.

[mirror]

I think the following two articles explain quite clearly the two fundamental problems for Bush, that the levees were not maintained by DC, and contrary to expectations that the US Administration had its act together following 9/11, the reality revealed absolute chaos at the top. So what Americans, and the whole world saw, was incompetence at the top. God help Americans if there is another natural disaster or another terrorist attack.

Despite Warnings, Washington Failed to Fund Levee Projects

WASHINGTON — For years, Washington had been warned that doom lurked just beyond the levees. And for years, the White House and Congress had dickered over how much money to put into shoring up century-old dikes and carrying out newer flood control projects to protect the city of New Orleans.

As recently as three months ago, the alarms were sounding — and being brushed aside.

 

In late May, the New Orleans district of the Army Corps of Engineers formally notified Washington that hurricane storm surges could knock out two of the big pumping stations that must operate night and day even under normal conditions to keep the city dry.

Also, the Corps said, several levees had settled and would soon need to be raised. And it reminded Washington that an ambitious flood-control study proposed four years before remained just that — a written proposal never put into action for lack of funding.

What a powerful hurricane could do to New Orleans and the area's critical transportation, energy and petrochemical facilities had been well understood. So now, nearly a week into the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, hard questions are being raised about Washington officials who crossed their fingers and counted on luck once too often. The reasons the city's defenses were not strengthened enough to handle such a storm are deeply rooted in the politics and bureaucracy of Washington.

With the advantage of hindsight, the miscues seem even broader. Construction proposals were often underfunded or not completed. Washington officials could never agree on how much money would be needed to protect New Orleans. And there hung in the air a false sense of security that a storm like Katrina was a long shot anyway.

Storm Exposed Disarray at the Top

The killer hurricane and flood that devastated the Gulf Coast last week exposed fatal weaknesses in a federal disaster response system retooled after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to handle just such a cataclysmic event.

Despite four years and tens of billions of dollars spent preparing for the worst, the federal government was not ready when it came at daybreak on Monday, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former senior officials and outside experts.

Among the flaws they cited: Failure to take the storm seriously before it hit and trigger the government's highest level of response. Rebuffed offers of aid from the military, states and cities. An unfinished new plan meant to guide disaster response. And a slow bureaucracy that waited until late Tuesday to declare the catastrophe "an incident of national significance," the new federal term meant to set off the broadest possible relief effort.

Born out of the confused and uncertain response to 9/11, the massive new Department of Homeland Security was charged with being ready the next time, whether the disaster was wrought by nature or terrorists. The department commanded huge resources as it prepared for deadly scenarios from an airborne anthrax attack to a biological attack with plague to a chlorine-tank explosion.

But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday that his department had failed to find an adequate model for addressing the "ultra-catastrophe" that resulted when Hurricane Katrina's floodwater breached New Orleans's levees and drowned the city, "as if an atomic bomb had been dropped."

If Hurricane Katrina represented a real-life rehearsal of sorts, the response suggested to many that the nation is not ready to handle a terrorist attack of similar dimensions. "This is what the department was supposed to be all about," said Clark Kent Ervin, DHS's former inspector general. "Instead, it obviously raises very serious, troubling questions about whether the government would be prepared if this were a terrorist attack. It's a devastating indictment of this department's performance four years after 9/11."

[mirror]

Here is a good blog if you want to read some Americans point of view about Katrina:

CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE AND KATRINA?

The provocative title is intentional.  Why did the Bush Administration fail to act according to the National Response Plan they created in December of 2004 to deal with an incident like Katrina?

What do you do when the words on the paper don't match the action in the field?  People are dying today in New Orleans because of the failure to provide immediate aid are dead in part because of the negligence of Michael Chertoff.  That is a harsh judgment, but if you will take time to read the National Response Plan that was signed into effect in December of 2004 there is no other reasonable conclusion. 

The current effort by the Bush Administration to blame the victims in Louisiana and Mississippi is bad enough, but they are in big trouble once Americans take the time to understand that they the Administration ignored it's own plan for dealing with a threat like Katrina.  Why did they fail to implement the plan until it was too late to save lives along the Gulf Coast?

Don't take my word for it, read the plan yourself.  You can download it at http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf

[Montgomery Burns]

The liberal Washington Post titled this article "Many Evacuated, but Thousands Still Waiting" with a deplorable subheading titled "White House Shifts Blame to State and Local Officials" and in typical WaPo fashion buried some interesting facts in the middle of the article:

Louisiana officials refused Bush's help

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

"The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana."

This appears to be another political stunt by the Democrat governor and mayor to refuse federal help simply because the White House is in the Republican's hands.

Disgusting. :angry:

[mirror]

Actually from the same article it says that the Bush administration was more interested in paperwork that would cover their ass and be used to blame others rather than go about the task of helping people:

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

I agree the Bush administration is disgusting!

[Montgomery Burns]

Argus:

Tell me something, does your city have a plan to evacuate its residents using school buses? Does it know where to send them to pick people up, where to take them? No? Evacuations of this nature are the responsibility of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Wrong

The City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan clearly states:

"The City of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas," and "Transportation will be provided to those persons requiring public transportation from the area."

and

Part II, Section B, paragraph 5 of the Louisiana Emergency Operations Plan (supplement 1A) states:

"School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating."